Business. Sense. Market. Epic oil glut sparks super tanker traffic jams at sea; largest windfarm installation vessel delivered

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30 Nov 2015 - world's largest windfarm installation vessel, Seajacks Scylla delivered to UK by South Korea
Classification society ABS reports that the world's largest and most advanced wind farm installation and offshore construction vessel, the ABS-classed Seajacks Scylla, has been delivered by Samsung Heavy Industries' Geoje, South Korea, shipyard.

Built for Great Yarmouth, U.K., based Seajacks International, the jack-up vessel is based on the Gusto MSC NG14000X design and has more than 8,000 metric tons of available variable deck load. Equipped with a 1,540-metric-ton Huisman leg-encircling crane and a usable deck space in excess of 5,000 sq m, the unit is outfitted with 105-m legs with the ability to install components in water depths to 65 m in North Sea conditions.

The rig is capable of meeting the installation needs of jumbo-monopiles, jackets, and turbines of future wind farms in deeper waters farther from shore.

"Industry growth depends on innovation and new designs," says ABS Chairman, President and CEO Christopher J. Wiernicki. "As a technology leader, ABS is pleased to work with Seajacks as it develops and launches vessels with increasingly greater capabilities." Seajacks CEO Blair Ainslie credits the strong working relationship among the project participants for the successful delivery of this unit.

Since 2009, Seajacks has invested in five self-propelled jackup units, all of which have been classed by ABS. The Seajacks Scylla is a milestone for the company as it is considered to be the most technically advanced installation vessel in the market.

The Seajacks Scylla complies with ABS classification requirements for self-propelled jack-up units, including DPS-2 for dynamic positioning capability; ACCU, which applies to automatic centralized control unmanned units; and CRC for crane register certificate.

In early December, Seajacks Scylla will begin her journey from South Korea to Europe on-board the heavy load carrier vessel, HLV Osprey, and is expected to arrive in Rotterdam around the end of January. Seajacks operations teams will then prepare the vessel for her first project next spring.

World Top 25 operational offshore wind farms - This is a list of the top 25 offshore wind farms that are currently operational, rated by nameplate capacity. In the case of a tied bottom place in the table, the wind farm with the earliest commissioning date is used.
Location Commissioning Wind farm Total
Date (MW)
1 UK 2012 London Array 630
2 UK 2015 Gwynt y Môr 576
3 UK 2012 Greater Gabbard 504
4 Denmark 2013 Anholt 400
5 Germany 2013 BARD Offshore 1 400
6 Germany 2015 Global Tech I 400
7 UK 2014 West of Duddon Sands 389
8 UK 2011 (phase 1) Walney 367.2
2012 (phase 2) (phases 1&2)
9 Belgium 2009 (phase 1) Thorntonbank 325
2012 (phase 2) (phases 1–3)
2013 (phase 3)
10 UK 2012 Sheringham Shoal 315
11 Germany 2015 Borkum Riffgrund 1 312
12 UK 2010 Thanet 300
13 Germany 2015 Nordsee Ost 295
14 Germany 2015 Amrumbank West 288
15 Germany 2015 Butendiek 288
16 Germany 2015 DanTysk 288
17 Germany 2015 EnBW Baltic 2 288
18 Germany 2015 Meerwind Süd / Ost 288
19 UK 2013 Lincs 270
20 UK 2015 Humber Gateway 219
21 Belgium 2014 Northwind 216
22 UK 2015 Westermost Rough 210
23 Denmark 2009 Horns Rev 2 209.3
24 Denmark 2010 Rødsand II 207
25 China 2010 Chenjiagang 201

World’s biggest offshore wind farm - the project will be capable of supplying the electricity needs of 800,000 to 1 million households … Each year this development could save between 3.5m and 4.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with coal fired generation, and between 1.5m and 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with gas fired generation. The wind energy complex would have 339 wind turbines covering 300 square kilometres off Caithness, making it 50% bigger than the giant London Array scheme off Kent. The world’s biggest offshore wind farm could be built off the northern Scottish coast, after a scheme with enough capacity to power 40% of Scottish households was submitted for planning permission.

The 1.5-gigawatt wind farm is being developed by Moray Offshore Renewables, a joint venture between Spanish oil company Repsol and an arm of Portuguese power group EDP, which has recently become partly owned by China’s state-owned Three Gorges Corporation. Dan Finch, project director for the scheme due to come on stream in 2018, said working more than 12 miles from shore allowed it to take advantage of the excellent wind resource in the outer Moray Firth.

“We estimate that the project will be capable of supplying the electricity needs of 800,000 to 1m households … Each year this development could save between 3.5m and 4.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with coal fired generation, and between 1.5m and 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with gas fired generation,” he said.

RenewableUK said a further 4.5 gigawatts of offshore wind schemes should follow into the planning process this year with a total of 18 gigawatts expected to become operational over the next eight years.

Maria McCaffery, RenewableUK’s chief executive, emphasised that this progress could only be achieved if the policy certainty laid out in the upcoming Energy Bill was achieved. “We’re marking a watershed moment as Round Three starts to become a reality with this planning application. It’s the first of many coming forward. As well as delivering secure supplies of low carbon electricity to British homes and businesses, our global leadership role in offshore wind can provide tens of thousands of jobs across the country, building and maintaining these turbines.”

‘Renewable energy generally and wind energy in particular is not alternative energy any longer – it is absolutely mainstream.’

This is a list of the 3 largest offshore wind farms by actual energy production since commissioning.
Country Official start Wind farm Production Total production
(GWh) (GWh) 2012
1 Denmark 2002 Horns Rev 1 676 5877
2 Denmark 2003 Nysted 1 575 5097
3 Denmark 2009 Horns Rev 2 956 2959

Reuters - Oil tankers queueing in U.S. Gulf seen as symbol of glut - A traffic jam of oil tankers has emerged along the U.S. Texas coast this month, a snarl that some traders see as the latest sign of an unyielding global supply glut.

More than 50 commercial vessels were anchored outside ports in the Houston area at the end of last week, of which 41 were tankers, according to the Houston Pilots, an organization that assists in the navigation of larger vessels in and around port areas. Normally there are between 30 to 40 vessels anchored offshore, of which two-thirds are tankers, according to the pilots.

Although the channel has been shut intermittently due to fog or flooding in recent weeks, pilots said those issues were not significant enough to create the backlog.

“It’s not because of a lack of pilots or tug boats,” according to JJ Plunkett, a Port Agent with the Houston Pilots.

As of Nov. 6, more than 20 million barrels of crude were sitting in vessels anchored outside the U.S. Gulf Coast waiting to discharge, double the volume that typically discharges each week, according to Matt Smith, Director of Commodity Research at ClipperData.

“We’re seeing ships idling off the coast of China, Singapore, (the) Arab Gulf, and now the U.S. Gulf. It appears that the glut of supply in the global market is only getting worse,” Smith said.

Oil traders in the U.S. cash market pointed to everything from capacity constraints at Gulf Coast storage tanks to a lack of buyers for the imported barrels.

While U.S. data show Gulf Coast inventories hit a record 251.7 million barrels just over a week ago, major facilities at Corpus Christi, Houston, the Beaumont-Nederland area, and St. James, Louisiana, were still barely two-thirds full at the end of October, according Genscape data.

Several traders said some ships may have arrived without a buyer, which can be hard to find as ample supply and end-of-year taxes push refiners to draw down inventories.

At the same time, the steepening contango structure of the oil futures market – in which prompt barrels are priced at a discount to future contracts – has diminished the urgency to unload vessels.

The spread between first- and sixth-month WTI has fallen by nearly $1 in three days to more than $4, its lowest since August but still not enough to make it profitable to store excess crude on tankers, traders said.

On Monday, the December to January contango for WTI hit its widest level since the end of April, with January trading up to a $1.30 a barrel premium to the prompt contract.

In related news, OPEC-fueled oil glut to offset waning U.S. output.

Nov 22, 2015 - money.cnn.com: Epic oil glut sparks super tanker 'traffic jams' at sea - not enough buyers: There is a "massive cushion" of crude oil around the world, with global stockpiles sitting at a record 3 billion barrels, according to the International Energy Agency. Cargo tracking data from ClipperData/Datamyne show how oil tanker traffic is piling up off the U.S. Gulf Coast. Blue dots indicate Aframax ships that can contain 750,000 barrels of oil, while pink dots are for Suezmax tankers with 1 million barrels. Yellow dots are for VLCC tankers, which can carry 2 million barrels. $2 gas coming soon...
Oil glut worsens as OPEC market-share battle just beginning: IEA
A global oil glut is building as OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia pumps near record highs in an attempt to win a market-share battle against stubbornly resistant U.S. shale production, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.
The West's energy watchdog said in a monthly report that although higher-than-expected oil demand was helping to ease the glut, growth in global oil consumption was far from spectacular.
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Image courtesy Wikipedia, Daily Mail, marinelog.com, evwind.es, evwind.es, CNN Money, AP / Telegraph UK, wtkr.com, Eagle Ford News / Reuters / Tim Chong, Reuters / Lucy Nicholson / Files, and TreeHugger